Online Learning Here to Stay
Closing out the year my first post since the panic. December 2nd and last month of 2020 big year for online learning what I thought was a learning fad for the traditional academic programs is now serious business to retrain reskill and accelerate student learning across the country. Millions of people out of work coming from nontraditional backgrounds who will need to retrain big time so they can come back as an entrepreneur or in a new industry.
How did I get into online education? Just before the start of the last recession in August 2008 I was hired by the Los Angeles Community District based out of Los Angeles Southwest College teaching computer applications classes my specialty were the Microsoft apps you know Word, Excel and fun with PowerPoint so on the eve of the worst financial crisis in our country’s history 2008 I was hired because I had experience in website design from taking HTML classes through New Horizons Computer Learning Center back in 2000. From there bounced over to a non-profit teaching welfare-to-work recipients students came to class worm was online after that then came the for-profit college like Westwood Fast forward and today online opportunities abound for anybody. Here is my education career portfolio
Seems online environment such as ecommerce, education think ESL, tutoring, counseling, training, you name the career all provide the greatest online opportunities for any age and for those individuals planning to pivot into new careers doesn’t take a college degree or expensive training. I would say a fast Internet like fiber 1 gigabit speed, webcam 1080p resolution, the latest software then you’re up and running into your new online venture. My career coach Marc Miller and team is able to run his online community from Mexico others can do it from Costa Rica or Panama. But you do not need to leave the states start from home or a co-working location in your local community.
As someone who has worked with K12, Community Colleges and at the University level with college students, adult learners in an online learning environment. I have my experience working with the major learning management systems or LMS each one has their advantages and disadvantages. Moodle for one is free that makes it major advantage just have to have a person knows Moodle or a group of staff members who team up to master Moodle. With the Canvas LMS you get a team of people to support you with individual consultants best of all Canvas has an easy to use interface then there is Blackboard the most cumbersome comprehensive of I think all the LMSs like an SIS and LMS in one package. Edmodo and Schoology specialize in k-12 while Adobe Capitvate is perfect for training. For an intuitive interface mulitple learning apps while the intuitive Google Classroom is currently the winner in the k-12 education space. Unlike other LMSs Google Classroom has the built-in video chat call Google me where students can have video chat with up to 25 students an interactive features and since Google product served ubiquitous it’s easy to have teachers and students scale up and you can go take your school overnight to Google Classroom I would also recommend E Commerce components so schools can have online storefronts for fund raising and online’s other academic activities but because of the pandemic other mass acts of violence or active shooter situation on learning online will be here so it would be better to turn our current schools into learning centers where students and parents can come and go at ease there will be technology solutions and other training and preventive and alternative extracurricular activities.
